


Beyond Reasonable Doubt

by linguamortua



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Armitage Hux Has Issues, Blow Jobs, Daddy Issues, Enemies to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Legal Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-24 20:32:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16182662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linguamortua/pseuds/linguamortua
Summary: Armitage Hux is a court reporter: meticulous, disciplined and determined to impress in his new job. He likes to focus on facts and details and let the lawyers worry about the rest. When a wild young man shows up in the courtroom demanding justice for his dead father, Hux ignores the drama and gets his job done. His impartiality, however, is soon compromised. Ben Solo will stop at nothing to make himself heard, and he seems intent on recruiting Hux to his questionable cause—and to his bed.





	Beyond Reasonable Doubt

**Author's Note:**

> I know nothing about the American legal system. Please don’t correct me because I will just immediately forget the information like it never existed. 
> 
> All section quotes are by Marcus Aurelius, because _of course Hux would_. 
> 
> Finally, many thanks to my partner in crime [xandrei](http://xan-drei.tumblr.com/) for cheerleading, idea vetting and wonderful, wonderful art!

**  
I. The memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time**

It was a cold day, a grey day, a day whipped by the wind and lashed by icy rain, when Armitage Hux moved into a single-bedroomed box of an apartment in a town where he knew nobody. There was only space for a single bed in the bedroom, which suited him as he did not intend to date. The galley kitchen was equally cramped, and suited him just as well, because he had never liked to cook. And if the windows looked out onto a back alley inhabited by rats and a dumpster, he didn’t care—Hux had never been an aesthete.

At present the tiny space was made less appealing still by the lack of furniture. That would come later, such that it was. His bed and dresser, a coffee table and a sofa. For now, he had to make do with a sleeping bag, a couple of boxes and a suitcase full of clothes. His suit bag hung over the top of the bathroom door. If it felt a little like camping, so be it. He started a new job in the morning, and all luxuries had been forgotten in his haste to leave Washington and arrive here. 

The best thing for him would be to get back to work. Objectively speaking, he was not well. As he used his new house key to open the tape on a box and began unpacking cutlery into a drawer, he scanned his body. His headache from driving for so long. The tightness in his chest and his uncomfortable stomach—both from a lingering anxiety that had not left him in months. 

And so what if he was feeling lonely? Everybody got lonely, sometimes. 

He closed the drawer and started on the plates. Outside, two drivers leaned on their horns, and somebody yelled. It was not much like his leafy suburb in Washington. He had found the apartment listing in a hurry, paid a deposit and the first month’s rent immediately, sight unseen. His restlessness had alarmed him and he had rationalised it thus: he needed to be his own man. He needed a fresh start. He needed to stand on his own two feet. He had not been running away. That would be absurd, and indicative of a weak and avoidant personality. Hux was not weak or avoidant. He was very sure of that.

There was a row of practical hooks along the kitchen backsplash for pots and pans. Hux approved, and used them accordingly. He was glad to have few kitchen tools. They wouldn’t have all fitted in his new space. Kitchen unpacked, he arranged his clothes on hangers and folded the rest into the dresser. He unzipped the suit bag and rolled stray lint from his blazer. He polished his work shoes and set them by the door. The box of books he pushed into a corner.

Then, everything was done, and it was still only five in the evening. The rest of the night stretched out in front of him, long and uninviting. _I should look around the neighbourhood,_ he thought to himself. It was only sensible. He would find a grocery store. He would buy takeout for dinner. 

He would definitely, definitely not think about anything important.

**  
II. A man’s worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions**

Some effort had been made to give the local courthouse a sense of gravitas. It was pale yellow sandstone in the New Classical style, and sat prominently at the top of a wide, sweeping flight of matching steps. 

Hux’s immediate reaction was to scorn its attempt at grandeur, but even tired and run down as he was he could appreciate the buttery warmth of the bricks, and its smooth white columns. The whole road had a sense of space and proportion, all the buildings quietly elegant. Although provincial, it was not an ugly town. Hux controlled himself. It was far too early to get emotional. He sipped his morning coffee and climbed the stairs, passing through the main doors and under the single metal detector. The guard waved him through without a flicker of concern. A long service desk dominated the atrium.

‘Armitage Hux,’ he said crisply to the middle-aged woman behind the desk. ‘I start here today as a court reporter.’ The woman looked him up and down, holding her head in a way that made her pastel pink hair look very much like a crown. Hux knew her type well. The indomitable, experienced older women who ran courthouses like clockwork. The women to whom feared judges crumbled into little boys when confronted with shoddily-completed paperwork. Who received great bouquets of flowers at regular intervals to keep them well-disposed towards the giver. Who could get away with pink hair.

‘I have you right here,’ the woman said, tapping her diary. ‘Welcome. I’m Amilyn.’

‘Thank you. I assume there are forms to fill out?’

‘It’s a courthouse, we live for paperwork. Come with me and we’ll get your security badge printed, too.’ Hux followed her obediently, and received a guided tour to which he listened attentively. ‘We’re in the Old Courthouse at the moment. It was built in 1911, so we’re one of the older buildings in town. It’s mostly for the public. We hold weddings here, citizenship ceremonies, that sort of thing. You’ll be working in the building behind this one.’

‘The New Courthouse?’ guessed Hux.

‘Officially, but everyone calls it The Box. You’ll see why.’ They turned a corner and entered a administrative office packed with several desks. A row of industrious men and women barely noticed them come in. Amilyn brusquely arranged him in front of a white background, took a passable photograph and printed his ID badge as he filled out employment information as quickly as he could.

‘Your security checks are all in,’ she said. ‘Your email will have been activated, and your supervisor will handle all that. I just make sure you can get in and out the office area.’ She clipped the security badge to a navy blue lanyard and handed it to him. 

‘Thanks.’ He examined the lanyard. ‘Tasteful.’

‘We try,’ said Amilyn in a dry voice. ‘Let me get you over to The Box and you can get settled in.’

The Box looked exactly as its name suggested: a big, glass-and-steel cube tacked onto the back of the elegant Old Courthouse by a covered walkway. Amilyn pointed Hux in the right direction.

‘I’ll have to leave you—I have a nine o’clock. Talk to the admin desk and they’ll get you set up the rest of the way.’

‘Thanks for your help,’ Hux said, meaning it. Her competence was reassuring. If he was the type to get nervous, which he obviously wasn’t, he would appreciate that. He hit the button on the door and it jerked its way open. Those idiotic buttons never did work properly. And then, the reintroduction— _Armitage Hux, new here, etc._ — and before he knew it he was stationed at a desk in an office with three other workstations.

It was not an unpleasant room. He wasn’t in the bullpen, and the far wall was all glass. In the middle distance there was a park, and he could see the corner of the Old Courthouse. The desk was generously-sized, the chair was respectable and the computer, for a wonder, booted quickly. With his satchel under his desk and his stainless steel water bottle by the landline, he felt, finally, as though he could breathe a little. He had made it out of Washington. He would not, for now, be unemployed. There were worse fates than this, a sunny shared office in a medium-sized town. He had dental coverage. He could pay his rent.

Before he had managed to log in to his email, a pair of men around his age walked in, one of them talking animatedly about a car.

‘New boy,’ said the other, nodding his head at Hux.

‘Hi, new boy,’ said the car guy, dumping his backpack on his desk chair and rummaging. ‘I’m Finn, this is Poe.’

‘What’s your name, new boy?’

‘Armitage Hux,’ said Hux. ‘I go by Hux.’

‘Wow,’ said Finn, with emphasis. ‘That sounds mysterious. And British.’

‘Hux,’ Poe tried. ‘Armitage Hux. Hux, are you a secret agent?’

‘Court reporter,’ Hux said tersely, and then scrutinised his empty inbox as if he’d received something very interesting and important. _Banter,_ he thought miserably. He had been hoping that chit-chat could be avoided, but by the looks of things, they’d put him in with the office gossips.

Finn and Poe soon lost interest and started bickering with each other over something incomprehensible to Hux. Pop culture, he imagined. It was usually where he came up short. He slid his Luminex from its neoprene case and plugged it in. As he typed into the writer in shorthand, hardware in the courtroom would automatically convert it to readable longhand on a screen. Hux transcribed only in this way; no voice writing for him, with its oppressive stenomask. Besides, it was hard on the vocal cords. Some people found typing on the boxy little machine, with its cryptic phonetic keys, a tedious and repetitive task. Hux had always rather enjoyed it. There was a certain flow state he could reach, where he hardly seemed to hear or process what people in the courtroom were saying before it was flowing out of his fingers in at a rate of two hundred and forty concise, accurate words per minute.

Hux took pride in his quick, clean steno work. He was a little defensive about it, just in the privacy of his own mind. But it was good, honest, needful work. Better, it kept him independent. It could be so much worse.

**  
III. Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth**

To Hux’s relief, the flow of work here was much the same as any other court reporting job. The City even used the same scheduling software. The first day, it had been easy to glide through mandatory onboarding and set up his profiles and inbox just how he liked them. It required no great effort to be blandly inoffensive to his coworkers. Poe and Finn quickly took their tiresome double-act elsewhere and, with no court sessions scheduled, Hux had obediently sat and read the employee handbook.

Life settled into a routine. Breakfast, the short bus ride to work. A day of steno and transcription edits. Then leaving for the day, grocery shopping, cooking, killing time. Sometimes he went to the library. The predictability, Hux told himself, was peaceful. It was good for him. He definitely didn’t need any excitement in his life right now. 

He told himself that on a crisp, late-fall day as he walked through the corridors of the courthouse after his lunch break. He returned to the courtroom, sat in front of his machine and stretched out his hands. He had a meticulous routine. The Luminex’s keys were surprisingly firm, and the judge had been wordy. A few people filed in, took seats near the back. Hux hadn’t checked the schedule to see what was next; he didn’t particularly care. 

At length the usual proceedings began; the officials filing in, the call for quiet. At the hearing today, an older couple giving evidence about an unscrupulous landlord. The sort of thing that was only barely too notable for smalls claims court. Hux switched off his conscious brain and transcribed. The older woman’s wavering, tearful voice. Her husband’s rasp and cough. A lung disease, an unreturned deposit, mysterious emails and payments. Threats unless more money were found. The usual. 

The hearing did not take long. At length the defendant and the the older couple returned to their seats, and Judge Amidala (a regal, sensible woman of whom Hux approved) made some brief pronouncements, trial to follow. The tension in the room passed into resolution, and a few people observing began shuffling in the seats, finding handbags, putting on jackets. Abruptly, a wild-looking young man with broad shoulders and a raw, big beak of a nose leaped to his feet in the back row. A cloud of dark hair haloed his head. His suit jacket did not fit well, and was missing a cuff button besides. Honestly. Hux couldn’t understand why people didn’t just make an _effort_.

As Judge Amidala rose to leave, the man rushed forward.

The man dashed into the aisle, his limbs careless. There was a wildness to him that alarmed Hux; here, surely, should be an oasis of calm and reason. 

‘Judge Amidala!’ he called, as the judge made her stately way towards the door. The woman froze and looked across at him. The irritation on her face told Hux that this was not her first encounter with the man. Her chin lifted. She did not reply. ‘Judge!’ The man tried again. ‘You know the verdict was wrong!’ Hux stared. Was this man genuinely arguing that the landlord should _not_ be punished for preying on an unwell elderly couple? 

Amidala leaned in to one of the security team and said a few words. The pair of men made their way around the dock and towards the man in the aisle. The courtroom was hushed by the prospect of delicious drama. Hux himself was frozen at his Luminex, appalled by the man’s behaviour. He was not sure why. He’d seen much worse in his day—tears, fighting, anguished families being escorted away. The man had an unusual intensity, he supposed. A striking face.

‘Listen to me,’ the man said, on the edge of shouting now. ‘I know you hated my father as much as I did, but he was murdered. Padme, he was murdered!’ Hux stared, and as he did the man looked at him and they locked eyes. Now he could see the man’s wide, trembling mouth. Now he was looking directly at his dark, long-lashed eyes. Every ounce of the man’s emotion seemed to transmit itself into Hux’s amygdala, jolting him into horrible sympathy. 

The security officers reached the man, and firmly took an arm each. He threw them off, taller and broader than both. At the front of the room, Amidala pushed her way through the doors and left. ‘Where’s your loyalty?’ the man yelled after her. ‘We’re family!’ The men had a good grip on him now, and they bustled him down to the back of the room and out the door. Hux could hear his voice echoing in the corridor outside, demanding to be let go, demanding justice. Sound returned to the courtroom once again. The dozen or so members of the public murmured among themselves as they too left. 

Soon enough, it was only Hux in the room. With fingers that hardly obeyed him, he packed up his machine and slid it back into its neoprene case. He disconnected and shut down the rest of the transcription system.

 _You hated my father as much as I did_ , the man had said. 

_Did he hate his father as much as I hate mine?_ Hux wondered to himself as he left the room. _Would I stop hating Brendol if he died? Would that free me?_ He walked slowly along the hallways, lost in thought. He had never spoken badly of his father before—before the situation went downhill last year. But his father had surely been critical enough of him. 

Rarely for good reason.

Hux heard the footsteps coming down the hall, felt their heavy vibrations through the old wood floor, and realised they were coming directly towards him. Realised too late, as it turned out, to avoid the excessive young man from the courtroom. He grasped Hux by the arm to get his attention, and Hux shook him off, feeling his face twist in disgust. 

‘Let go of me,’ he said abruptly, and walked fast.

‘I saw you watching me,’ said the man, Solo. It burst out of him with a weird intensity. ‘In the courtroom.’

‘I wasn't watching you,’ Hux lied. ‘I was doing my job.’

‘Couldn’t it have been both?’

Hux, instead of replying, calculated the best route back to the keycarded offices. Many of the winding corridors and staircases connected to themselves in the older part of the complex in ways that he, regrettably, did not yet fully know. Besides, he wanted fresh air, and lunch. 

‘Leave me alone,’ he said, pushing through the doors leading out onto the steps. He did not hold the door behind him, and it bounced off Solo’s broad shoulder. The lack of response was, Hux thought, disappointing.

‘Why were you looking at me like that?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Hux took the stairs at an undignified half-trot, keys jingling in his pocket.

‘You do.’ _Do not,_ Hux wanted to say, but feared getting caught in an endless cycle of childishness. He took a sharp right at the bottom of the stairs, cutting down a side street. Solo, persistent and looming, followed.

There was a queue at the sandwich shop that Hux liked, and he cursed it inwardly. 

‘Look,’ he said, trying to be reasonable. ‘I’m trying to enjoy a lunch break here, so if you could just fuck off, that would be great.’

‘Are you British?’ asked Solo, as if that were relevant somehow. And then, ‘when I said I’d hated my dad, you looked like you’d seen a ghost.’

‘This is embarrassing,’ said Hux out loud, to Solo and to the small queue in general. ‘You’re being embarrassing. Do you always hound strangers on the street?’

‘Answer me, and then I’ll leave.’

‘I don’t particularly get along with my father, if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘So you understand,’ Solo said, satisfied, some matter evidently settled in his mind. But he didn’t leave. He stood next to Hux, shuffling up in the queue until Hux made his order.

‘Cheese and tomato on white bread, extra mayonnaise and no mustard. And a _green_ apple. Thank you.’

‘You _are_ British,’ Solo said, wonderingly. Hux received his lunch, paid, and stalked out, Solo loping along behind like some great, uncivilised creature. At the end of the road, he stopped, pulling up short.

‘Look.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Let me make this clear. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to talk to you about your father. I don’t want to talk to you about _my_ father. If I looked like we were having some kind of a moment in there, it was entirely accidental. And I’d like you to leave me alone now, and never speak to you again about anyone, or anyone’s father. Thank you.’

Solo shrugged, and gave a lopsided smile, and turned away—and then turned back for a moment.

‘You should talk to someone about your daddy issues,’ he said. ‘It sounds kinda personal to you.’

Later, Hux reflected on the volume of his response, and the number of curse words. It had been ugly, and now he had given the tedious man the sense that it was a deeply sensitive topic. What was worse was that it _was_ sensitive, and Hux _had_ been looking at Solo in the courtroom in a moment of recognition. And now, Solo knew where he worked, knew where he liked to have lunch and, it seemed, fully believed that the two of them were destined to be friends, bonding over insufficient paternal affection as children and estrangement as adults. 

Hux wasn’t interested. He ate lunch at his desk, headphones in, ignoring his office mates and pretending to work. He didn’t need a crusade, and he didn’t need friends.

**  
IV. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed**

The first email arrived the next day. It didn’t occur to Hux to be alarmed; every employee’s email address followed the same format, and it wasn’t as though his name was common.

 _You should listen to me_ , it read. _Aren’t you interested in justice?_

Childishly manipulative and wildly inaccurate. If Hux had been truly invested in justice, he’d have followed his father all the way to the bar. Did Solo think everyone who worked in the court system was some cartoonish aspiring superhero? No wonder the man was deluded, hysterical.

He deleted the email. It wasn’t even worth reporting. The rest of his day was booked solid, but when he checked his email at quarter past six that evening, there were four more emails. Hux rolled his eyes, deleted each one without opening it, and then blocked the email address.

The next day, a LinkedIn notification. ‘Ignore,’ said Hux under his breath as he clicked the ignore button. More emails, from two new addresses. Delete, delete, delete. Some years ago, Hux had endured a workplace training seminar on dealing with stalkers. A common problem in the field, where emotions ran high and client felt wronged. Ben Solo seemed a classic case.

‘Don’t reward the behaviour,’ the facilitator had said. ‘If someone calls you a hundred times and you pick up the phone after a hundred and one calls, that tells them exactly how persistent they have to be to get a reaction from you. And make no mistake, they’ll be that persistent.’

All through the week the emails kept coming. Half a dozen a day, from different email addresses. Hux never read them, nor did he report them. How would that look—the new guy already caught up in some ridiculous drama with a man whose grip on reality was clearly tenuous. He kept his head down. He did his job. He didn’t engage.

So effective was he at keeping his head down that, on a morning that was grim with impending winter and almost as dark, he walked directly into Ben Solo on the steps of the courthouse.

‘You,’ Hux said with irritation, bending to pick up the granola bar that had slipped off the lid of his paper coffee cup on impact.

‘You never answered my emails,’ said Solo. His big cow-like eyes looked watery, and his big, excessive mouth turned down at the corners.

‘Your emails are insane,’ Hux said. ‘Stop sending them. And definitely stop loitering around here like a creep.’ He rebalanced his granola bar so that the heat from his coffee could optimally warm it through by the time he reached his office. Then he stepped around Solo and walked away up the steps.

‘You’re afraid to get fired again,’ Solo called from behind him. Hux froze. ‘You stood up for someone before, and you were punished for it. You’re scared history will repeat itself.’ Solo paused. ‘I read about you.’ Hux came back down the steps.

‘Lower your voice,’ he hissed. ‘You don’t know anything about me.’ Solo pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolded it.

‘Sex scandal rocks statewide law firm,’ he read. ‘Scion of law family axed from Hux, Tarkin and Associates.’ He turned the page over. ‘Or, how about this one: No justice for whistleblower in sex abuse case.’

‘Shut up,’ said Hux urgently. He snatched the paper away and crumpled it into the pocket of his blazer without looking. ‘None of that is any of your business.’

‘It’s really weird how you won ‘Young Law Student of the Year’ but now you’re a typist.’ Solo said it as though he was just thinking aloud.

‘A court reporter,’ Hux corrected on reflex. ‘Stop prying into my personal life.’

‘Professional life,’ said Solo. ‘And it’s all on the front page of Google.’

‘It’s intrusive to go digging it all up.’

‘Again, first page of Google.’ Hux turned to leave and something intense came across Solo’s face. He grabbed Hux’s upper arm. His thick fingers swamped Hux’s bicep. ‘Wait, wait—I didn’t mean to be flippant. You’re honestly the only person who can help me.’

Hux seemed to recall an email with that subject line. It was much more convincing when Solo said it out loud. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard it. A wave of deja vu made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

‘I’m sure that’s not true.’

‘I know it is.’ Solo’s grip was starting to hurt Hux’s arm. He took the bait, knowing it for what it was.

‘Why?’

Solo’s throat worked for a moment, the words trapped.

‘Because I believe my father was killed for threatening to take incriminating evidence public.’

‘That sounds both dramatic and unlikely,’ Hux managed after a moment, but it sounded petty coming out of his mouth and he knew immediately that he was being obnoxious. He paused. ‘Anyway, you’d need proof. What makes you think he was murdered?’

‘Well,’ said Solo, with the offhand air of someone who knows he’s about to be shocking. ‘He _did_ have a contract with Hutt Technologies.’

Hutt Technologies. A trillion-dollar software company notorious for its watertight NDAs, its much-abused contractors, and its utter immunity from the law. A flock of the best and most hawkish lawyers. Near-infinite resources. The ear of every government official. Suddenly, the man’s behaviour didn’t seem nearly so ridiculous. 

‘If that’s true,’ Hux said, ‘you’re probably screwed anyway.’

‘I’m used to being the underdog,’ said Solo airily. ‘Like, I do well with a challenge.’ He brushed his hair out of his face and looked at Hux as if he was about to pick a fight.

 _Christ_ , Hux thought, seeing the miserable inevitability unfold before him.

**  
V. The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury**

As a matter of both preference and principle, Hux didn’t take strange men home to his apartment. He wasn’t interested in casual sex. In sex, as in everything else, Hux approved of research and planning. Quality assurance, in a sense. 

He believed it right up until the moment that Ben Solo hustled him backwards through his own front door, and pressed him up against the end of the kitchen counter. Hux would have liked to complain if only for the form of it— _not that kind of boy_ , and so on—but two of Ben’s big fingers were tucked under the knot of his tie, tugging at it, and it was hard to breathe. Then Ben’s sulky mouth was on his, and it was even harder to breathe. Any potential topic of complaint disappeared in a wash of bloodrush and sudden, total desperation. 

The body didn’t lie, and Hux’s hadn’t been touched by anyone but himself in a long, long time. And although Ben Solo was a despicably sloppy and undisciplined human in some ways he was extremely focused in other.

‘Sex and stalking?’ Hux said into Ben’s neck, when they came up for air.

‘What?’ Ben asked distractedly, undoing Hux’s shirt buttons before his jacket and tie were off. 

‘I thought you were inept,’ Hux managed. His hands were making their way up Ben’s t-shirt. ‘But you’ve picked two very interesting areas of competence.’

They moved awkwardly through the tiny apartment to the bedroom. As soon as Hux sat down on the edge of his bed—feeling for the first time a little ashamed of its shabbiness—Ben slid to his knees on the floor. He scrabbled at Hux’s zipper and pulled his cock out. With no foreplay and precious little grace, Ben began blowing Hux, his dark hair half-covering his face. He was neither unskilled nor inexperienced. In fact, he was so obviously well-practiced that Hux was rocked by the immediate thought of Ben regularly on his knees with the intent of getting whatever he wanted.

Getting out of a speeding ticket. Getting a better grade. Hitching a ride down a highway. Hux’s imagination wasn’t picky. He invented a dozen scenarios for Ben as the man, obscenely, obnoxiously, made himself gag and made Hux grab at his bedsheets. Ben’s cock was straining at his jeans. Hux couldn’t take his eyes off it. 

‘Take it out,’ he ordered. Ben paused.

‘What?’ he said, his bottom lip wet and his chin too.

‘Take your dick out,’ Hux said. Ben complied, and started to lazily jerk himself off. ‘Oh my God,’ said Hux. Ben smiled around his cock and kept going.

In this too, Ben was apparently relentless. For once, Hux let himself be swept away by something.

‘Did you always want to be a lawyer?’ It was much later, and Ben was leaning off the edge of the bed to smoke out the window. Hux allowed it, although watching Ben smoke made him desperately want a cigarette himself.

‘No,’ Hux said, ‘I wanted to join the army.’ He smiled at the memory.

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘Asthma. Grew out of it, eventually, but by then I’d given up the idea of a military career.’

‘So then you wanted to be a lawyer?’ Ben ashed his cigarette with a lazy flick.

‘Not really.’

‘Are you gonna make me drag every answer out of you?’ Ben said with an eye roll. ‘Give me the details. I want to know about you.’

‘This pushiness is incredibly American,’ Hux said, but he sat up in bed a little and propped a pillow up against the wall, settling in for a long conversation. ‘No, I never particularly wanted to work in law. My father was a lawyer, though, and I thought that maybe following in his footsteps would be a good career move. And maybe make him like me more.’

‘What’s not to like?’ Ben said rhetorically. ‘Hey, do you have any snacks?’

‘Maybe—check the kitchen.’

‘So why didn’t your dad like you?’ Ben flung himself back into bed with half a bag of chips that were surely stale by now. Hux gestured to Ben’s whole nude body. 

‘Oh, you know.’

‘What an asshole.’

‘Indeed. Anyway, I trained as a court reporter for some experience in the field, and to save for law school.’

‘That’s smart,’ said Ben. ‘These chips are really old—do you want some, though?’ Hux shook his head. ‘My parents never had an issue with my sexuality. My mom really wanted me to consider politics though.’

‘Wow.’ 

‘Yeah. Obviously I didn’t do that.’

‘Obviously.’

Obviously, because Ben had no filter, no common sense and clearly very little in the way of moral compass. He was mildly annoying, in fact. Hux tolerated his presence in his bed; not just this first time but again the next week, and twice more that weekend. 

Quite soon he found out that Ben lived in some kind of appalling artists’ squat with some other people, a complex situation which was paid for by means unknown to Hux. Although Ben invited him over, Hux categorically refused to go. 

And, when Ben casually suggested that a spare key to Hux’s apartment might be useful, Hux reacted with such horror that Ben never brought it up again. Despite this, they met (or more accurately, Ben appeared by Hux’s side) most nights after work, occasionally picking up food on the way home and they once, shockingly, went on _an actual coffee date_. The coffee shop, with a cutesy name and leather armchairs, knew Ben by sight. The final indignity, Hux thought to himself as he stared at his overpriced and oversweetened coffee. He was now irrevocably associated with Ben.

Ben. Big eared, earnest Ben; Ben, a kind of sex wizard with few social skills and no impulse control. Ben, who still called Hux _Hux_ , but who wanted unfettered access to Hux’s apartment. 

Ben brought up his father at least once a week by Hux’s count. Hux wished he wouldn’t. At first, he thought it was because hearing Ben talking about Han Solo made him think about his own father. As the weeks drew on, though, Hux realised it was because it reminded him that Ben was still expecting Hux’s help. Hux had inadvertently encouraged him on this score. Bit by bit, the full story that had been reported in the news came out. Yes, Brendol Hux had been cast down in disgrace. Yes, it had been malpractice. Hux had indeed been the one to alert the authorities. Hux had even explained to Ben that his anger at his father’s rejection had been the driving force. If Brendol Hux didn’t want a gay son, Hux had set out to ensure that he would have no son at all.

Ben had approved. That was typical of him. But Hux knew that if Ben fully understood the cost, he might not be so approving. And besides, now he thought that Hux was some kind of selfless warrior for justice, instead of a fool who’d ruined his own career for a fleeting moment of petty revenge. 

One evening, they walked across the crisp, frosty grass of the park. Close together, almost brushing at the shoulders, although not holding hands. 

‘Something smells good,’ said Ben, and then Hux smelled it too; something warm and roasting and sweet and spicy. They stopped and looked around. Over by the church that bordered the west side of the park was a vendor. The evening was already almost dark, and his little cart was lit up. Red and gold, under a streetlight. They stood and watched for a few moments.

‘Nuts, I think,’ Hux said. He walked over, Ben keeping pace easily. It was. 

‘Smells like Christmas,’ Ben said to the vendor.

‘It’s October,’ Hux said, offended, but Ben and the vendor ignored him, and Ben bought a cone of the roasted nuts. They were nubbly with the cinnamon and sugar coating. 

As they walked home, they passed the cone back and forth, taking it in turns to hold its warmth. Ben threw them into his mouth a few at a time; Hux ate them one by one. 

‘You’re so tidy,’ said Ben. ‘An English gentleman.’ Hux snorted, but it was a good compliment, by his reckoning. Ben wasn’t entirely obtuse. Actually, Hux supposed that if you could assess that sort of thing, Ben was quite sensitive. It baffled him that he was beginning to enjoy it. Something in the way that Ben took life as it came, enjoyed things and gave Hux permission to enjoy them too. It almost demanded some kind of repayment.

**  
VI. What we do now echoes in eternity**

Hux sat down at his kitchen counter, coffee mug in hand. Next to the sink, almost out of reach, lay his phone. It seemed to emit a lurking, malevolent energy, the very thought of which was ridiculous and illogical. And yet, he felt as though it would burn him if he touched it. This, he knew, was part of what guilt felt like. He had felt like this every time he had tried to make this phone call. Every time thus far, he had failed.

‘You’re a coward,’ he muttered to himself. It was the kind of terse, unfriendly comment that his father might have made to him. The older Hux got, the more he was bizarrely able to empathise with the man. At least, empathise with his opinions about his son. What that said about Hux’s self-esteem probably wasn’t good. He made a grab for his phone and unlocked it with his thumb.

 _I didn’t tell you the whole truth,_ he texted hurriedly, before he changed his mind. He sent it—to Ben.

 _about what_ , replied Ben seconds later, with his usual disregard for the conventions of grammar and punctuation.

 _I didn’t find out about my father’s malpractice on my own,_ he typed. _I learned about it from a friend._

_so?_

_She didn’t want to report it. I did. It ruined her career._

_maybe if she’d had INTEGRITY_

Hux’s thumb hovered over his phone screen, and he tried to condense the whole sordid story down into a text. Phasma coming to him out of respect for their law school friendship. Her potential glittering career, that she had built from less than nothing. The sick brother depending on her. His father’s malice; her subsequent public humiliation. Phasma—sharp, hard-working, laser-focused—taking the fall for what he, Hux, had wanted. To ruin _his father’s_ career. To punish _his father_ for his rejection of Hux. 

He’d let Ben believe that his father was the one who could help. Wasn’t there a neat symmetry to that? The older Hux untangling the dangerous riddle of the older Solo’s death, cheered on by their sons? But Brendol would never speak to his son again, let alone help him, even if he hadn’t been disbarred. And the only other person Hux knew with the kind of bulldog tenacity required… well, she had even more reason than his father to cut him out of her life.

He wondered what life was like, doing cut-price legal work for a petty firm of ambulance-chasers. Not good, he imagined. Worse, possibly, than Hux never passing the bar at all. He composed another text.

_It wasn’t like that. She had someone depending on her. My father ruined her career. Blackballed her._

_harsh,_ sent Ben. And then, a minute later. _whats she got to do with your dad though_

 _Nothing at all, any more._ Hux typed. _But she’s got everything to do with you. She’s the person I think can help figure out your dad’s death._

_wow u fucked up_

‘Yeah,’ Hux said to himself. ‘Yeah, I did.’ Ben sent another text, and then another half a minute later, but Hux was already composing, mentally, what he was going to say to his old and estranged friend. The very act of confessing the depths of his selfishness to Ben had made calling Phasma seem more possible.

He hovered over her name in his phone book for a moment. Before he could bottle out yet again, he called. It rang and rang. Hux could feel his heart beating in his throat. His hand on the phone was number from gripping it so hard by the time she picked up at the other end. He hadn’t expected a warm greeting, but he’d forgotten quite how forthright Phasma could be.

‘I’m guessing you’re calling to gloat, you arrogant little son of a bitch? I’m amazed you held off so long.’

For a moment the words wouldn’t quite come out for Hux and then, when they did, they were in a high, awkward voice that he could not immediately recognise as his own.

‘Actually, I’m calling to apologise.’

‘Two years late.’

‘Two years late,’ Hux agreed. He bit the inside of his cheek hard. Then he formed his turbulent, guilty thoughts into something like a real apology. ‘I grew up with Brendol, so I knew that he was going to lash out if I tried to take him down. I knew there was a chance it wouldn’t be me. You told me so. And then I did it anyway. Because I wanted revenge. It was—’ he paused, searching for the word, ‘unconscionable. I’m sorry, Phasma. We were friends and I should never have risked your career like that.’

There was a very long silence; he could faintly hear Phasma breathing. 

‘Did you take a seminar?’ she said finally.

‘A seminar?’

‘On apologising.’ She snorted. ‘That actually sounded human. Like a real fucking person with feelings.’

‘I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.’

‘Have you.’ It wasn’t a question. Hux had forgotten her singular ability to make a conversation uncomfortable. He recalled then that many of the people who hadn’t liked him in law school hadn’t liked Phasma either.

‘Yes. Circumstances have changed. In a way.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re talking to your asshole father again.’

‘No, God no,’ Hux said. ‘No, I’m seeing someone. In a sense. Casually. But at the same time not. It’s complicated. It’s been making me think, though—just generally, about life. And priorities.’ Hux was rambling. He could absolutely hear himself doing it. Phasma had that effect on most people; Hux would bet that she was a horror in a courtroom.

‘You’re seeing someone,’ she said flatly. ‘And thinking about priorities.’

‘I mean, I said it’s complicated,’ said Hux, hurt.

‘So what do you want, exactly?’ Phasma asked, with a terrible certainty in her voice. ‘Because it sounds like you’re about to ask me for a favour.’

‘I actually am,’ said Hux, and then followed up very quickly, ‘but you’re going to like it. You’re really going to like it.’

‘You’ve got thirty seconds to impress me and then I’m hanging up.’

‘How would you like to solve the mystery of a potential murder ordered by Hutt Technologies to protect their intellectual property?’

Hux heard Phasma’s breath catch down the phone. In law school, it was the kind of case that they’d gossip about over coffee like popcorn at a movie. He was sure that he had her.

‘I’m still mad at you, Hux,’ said Phasma, eventually. ‘But I’m interested. I’m very fucking interested.’

**  
VII. Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking**

They sat in the park, braving the snow. In the near distance, traffic crunched down the road, but other than that it was almost silent. The only part of Ben that was visible under his coat and woollens were his eyes, his beaky nose, and a lock of wavy dark hair trying to escape from under his hat. Hux didn’t like the cold any more than Ben did, but here they had some privacy. It was almost certainly too late. Hux’s entire workplace was likely to know about Ben by now.

As if on cue, Ben heaved the dramatic sigh of a petulant young prince, spoiled only by his red nose.

‘Why do we have to be out here?’

‘So that you don’t make a scene at my place of work.’

‘What kind of a scene?

‘You’d think of something.’ Hux paused expectantly. ‘Well?’

Ben reached into his pocket and pulled out a letter. He unfolded it clumsily with his gloved hands and passed it over.

‘You did it,’ he said. His voice had a warm glow in it that Hux couldn’t help but be affected by. Hux read. The letterhead, Phasma’s current workplace. The body of the text, terse boilerplate. And yet, what it represented was everything. Phasma would take the case and propel the mystery of Han Solo’s death into a second hearing. A trial to follow, if he knew Phasma. She would harry the machinery of justice into motion. She would make noise. She would ensure that all evidence about Solo’s untimely death was dragged out into the light.

And yet, eternally pessimistic, Hux said, ‘You know this is only the beginning, don’t you?’

It was only the beginning, but Hux realised that it was a good beginning when Phasma called him the next day and confirmed what he had already seen in the letter.

‘Glad you called about it,’ she said with her usual terseness. ‘Might be just what I need.’ 

‘Yes,’ said Hux, slowly. He looked at his laptop, sitting open on his kitchen counter. ‘If anyone can get under Hutt’s skin, it’s you.’

‘It could have been you,’ Phasma said generously. ‘If you hadn’t run off to semi-rural Fucksville like a little bitch.’ Hux couldn’t really complain about her assessment.

‘Anyway it might be,’ said Hux. ‘I’m going to apply to law school again.’

‘No kidding,’ Phasma said. ‘You’re going back to Columbia?’

‘No—University of Fucksville, semi-rural campus,’ Hux said, and he suddenly laughed. ‘This time around, I think I’m going to do things a little differently.’ And he leaned over to his laptop and clicked the green button: _apply here_.


End file.
